WAVE-PROPAGATION IN LAYERED DRY, SATURATED AND UNSATURATED POROELASTIC MEDIA

An exact stiffness formalism is presented to study harmonic and transi ent wave propagation in multilayered dry, saturated and unsaturated is otropic poroelastic media. Smeulders' extension of Blot's poroelastic theory is used to incorporate-unsaturated porous media with a small ga s fraction. A-wide range of problems in geophysical and civil engineer ing can be treated, ranging from amplification of plane harmonic waves , dispersion and attenuation of surface waves to transient wave propag ation due to a forced excitation. The effect of full or partial satura tion on wave propagation in a poroelastic layered halfspace is demonst rated in a numerical example, in which the layering is caused by a mov ing ground water table. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science. All rights reserved .